A few weeks ago we had a guy come and fix our slide and our heater (I know - we certainly don't need the heater now, but it's been needing to get fixed so I am SO thankful it is!). Tuesday we needed to go get LP (it has been probably 6 months since we needed to do that!), and it was SO nice not to need 5 people to push in the slide!! Just turn the key and a few beeps later, it's IN! BTW - when we went to go get LP, Tim and I were like, "Oh man - let's just keep driving!!" :-) But good sense prevailed, along with the realization I needed to take Nathan to his orthodontist appointment, and so we came back to our parking spot at the Perrella's. Yesterday morning, Tim and Nicholas took off for their pre-teen get-away we do with our kids. Nathan and Nicole went over to their friends' house, so it was just Noah and me. We went over his school work and then I got BUSY. I was going to pressure wash the camper, but I couldn't get the pressure washer to stay on (I could start it but couldn't keep it running). Argh. So I grabbed a long brush we have and a hose and washed the whole outside of the camper, and then came inside and cleaned everything I laid my eyes on (which was a LOT!). It felt great to have that kind of time! Tim and Nicholas came home this morning from their get-away with reports of a great time together. And then our camper maintenance guy came out again today! He fixed our awning arms, our TV antenna crank, the glazing on the front window of our cabover, cleaned out our air conditioner ducts on the inside, and fixed the clogs we were getting in the A/C drain on the top of the camper!! It's AWESOME! We just need a couple of switches for a couple of lights and 1 light fixture, and we'll be all set (at least until the next thing breaks). :-) We've been looking at the emails that have been trickling in with homes that have been going on the market, but I think I keep matching them up against the other place we made an offer on and they just don't appeal to me. There's 1 I'm kind of interested in, but it was built in the '70s, and Tim is just really leary of older homes. Our mortgage counselor with NACA left the company this past Tuesday, so we are still waiting on getting approved by them. We are just trusting God's timing is PERFECT, and so we are trying to patiently wait on Him. Hope everyone's having a great weekend! Blessings to all!

Tim had the nuclear stress test this morning that the doctor recommended, and this afternoon we received a call from his nurse saying, "Normal stress test - no suggestion of any blocked arteries or past heart attack or scarring"!! So that was GREAT news! BTW - our realtor was finally able to find out yesterday that the bank made a decision on the house, and our offer was not accepted (no real surprise there). So, it's back to the ole' drawing board. :-) Thanks again for everyone's prayers for Tim's health and our house hunting - they mean so much to us! Hope everyone's having a great week! Blessings!

Friday night we had movie night and watched the movie Left Behind that I got from the library which is based on the book series the kids have been reading. It was really great, except for the parts where Nicole and Nathan were saying, "that's now how it went in the book". It reminds me of when they were little and if they detected something was not right, they would shake their heads and say, "Not how it goes". :-) So we popped pop corn and watched the movie, and then I made pancakes so they could eat them on the way to the coastal clean up the next morning. We dragged them out of bed around 7:30 Saturday morning, heated up the pancakes, and drove to Tampa for the semi-annual coastal cleanup. We've been doing that since they were about 3 years old, only missing a couple of years due to sports or whatever. The event we attend is headed up by a guy I used to work with at AT&T, and he always does such a fantastic job of coordinating the event for us AT&Ters. It was fun reconnecting with some of my former colleagues, plus we picked up a ton of trash in a short amount of time! We had to head back a little earlier than usual because I had a bridal shower to attend. We had a nice rest of the day, and went to church Saturday night. Then this morning we had a lovely Little Church - Tim noticed a theme in all of our verses regarding a home. It was a good reminder that this place (earth) is not our home, but we have a heavenly dwelling that is our true home. We spent some time talking about our feelings about not getting the house. I think Nathan & Nicholas and I were the most disappointed. Nicole and Noah were the least disappointed, and Tim was somewhere in between. We talked about the slight chance that something could fall through for the other buyers and that we could possibly still get the house, but we didn't see any point in hoping for that. It was good just to be able to share with each other where we are all at in this process. We had a nice day of rest - Nicole and I watched another movie we got from the library, Soul Surfer - what an amazing story about an amazing girl. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it! It actually rained for a bit this afternoon - it hadn't done that in several days after a long spell of raining pretty much every day. After it stopped, there was a nice cool breeze, so Nathan, Nicole, and I went out on the rowboat and cruised around the lake a bit, while Nicholas helped Mr. Perrella weed out some of the weeds growing around his dock. We had a very late dinner since we didn't even come in from all that until after 6pm, I believe. So we ran out of time for blessings - bummer. Maybe next week. But we did say prayers together and are looking forward to starting another week of school and work tomorrow. Hope everyone had a great weekend! Blessings!

But they're asking us if our offer is our highest and best, so they're not accepting the other offer outright (they told us there are only 2 offers on the table now). But we can't play that game - that WAS our highest and best offer. So we have until Monday at 5pm to change our offer, but we both don't feel like that would be a good move on our part - it would just strap us too much. So it looks like we have to move on at this point. We are all very dissapointed, but still with lots of peace. There must be something that would be an even better fit for our family out there. It's been such a whirlwind of a week - it was just about at this time 1 week ago I saw the email with the listing of this property for sale. Which tells me that another one could come along just as quickly and we could have something else even a week from now. When we bought our last house it went on the market on a Friday, we looked at it on a Saturday, placed an offer on it on Sunday and they accepted it that day. So, we're trusting in God's perfect timing. Thank you again for your prayers - they mean so much to us! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

About 4:30pm today we submitted another, higher offer. But the bigger story for me is what happened this morning. Our family has been using the Life Journal reading plan, and over the past few weeks we've been in the book of Revelation. The kids have been checking out the Left Behind books from the library, and this morning I started thinking about another series of books based on Biblical prophesy written by Joel C. Rosenburg that I have read. So I looked up his website and clicked on his blog and watched the message he gave to a group of people this past weekend commemorating 9/11. It is powerful. It is convicting. It is hopeful. It is grounding. It was so many things to me. You can get to his blog by going here: http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/. Scroll down to his 9/13/11 update and either read an abridged version of his message or watch it by clicking on the link at the top of his 9/13/11 blog update. You get a bonus if you watch it because you get to hear the group Selah and also you get to hear from Billy Graham's sister, Anne Graham Lotz. Anyway, I believe we are going to get the house. I believe it will be a blessing to our family and hopefully others, and I believe it will take up a lot of our time and resources, and that's OK. I just hope I don't lose the perspective I gained today in listening to Joel and Anne's messages. We've had our mail being delivered to our friends' house (our former neighbors) since we sold our old house. I went by today to pick up the past few days' of mail, and they asked if I had time to sit down and talk...and I DID and it was such a blessing to be with them. I remember when I owned a house right next door to them it seems I NEVER had time to do that. Maybe it's just a matter of time management. Please pray I'll do a better job of that. If we don't get the house, while we will all be very disappointed, we have a peace that God has a reason. Thank you again for all your prayers. If you read or watch Joel's message, please comment on this blog and let me know what you think. I pray God's richest blessings on you all! :-)

The listing agent confirmed with our realtor this morning that there have been multiple offers on this house. He told her that he will be sending an email out tomorrow afternoon (which is day 7 of the listing) to everyone who has submitted an offer asking if this is indeed their best offer, at which time we have decided we will go ahead and up our offer to a number we both agree with and believe should be enough, and we'll leave the rest up to the Lord. This will automatically disqualify us from NACA funding because they do not allow any offers above the asking price. That's a bummer... as Billy said in his comment, we really have been working hard for NACA, but as our realtor asked us, which do we want more, NACA or this house, and the answer is definitely this house (especially since we are getting the same interest rate!). At least when Wells Fargo asks us for the information they will need I'll have it ready and at my fingertips since we already gathered all of it for NACA! So please be praying. As nerve-wracking as this could be, I really feel peaceful that whatever happens is God's will. Thank you for all who have commented and those who have phoned to say they are praying for us - it means so much to us! The bank may make a decision tomorrow evening or take a few days to go through all the offers. We'll keep you posted! Blessings to all. :-)

Well, NACA hadn't sent our file to the underwriters yet, and the underwriters take 3-5 days and then you have to go to a purchase meeting on a Thursday night and THEN they give you your approval letter that you can use to submit offers on a house. This is a bank-owned property, and the bank stipulated they would only take offers from NACA or Wells Fargo. So we contacted Wells Fargo and obtained a pre-qualifying letter for an FHA loan and it looks like we would get the same low interest rate as what NACA is offering - 3.75%! Not too shabby, eh? Only problem is that they are expecting multiple offers because this is such a great deal, so now we pray that if this is the Lord's will they will accept ours. We covet your prayers on this! Thanks so much!!

Prayer warriors - get your prayers on! :-) We need to get the pre-qualifying letter from our mortgage company to be able to place an offer. Here are some pictures - what do you think??

It's a 5 bedroom 3 bath home, 3300 sq - a little bigger than what we wanted, but the price is amazing and the location is incredible and all 6 of us love it (it's the first house all 6 of us have agreed on!). :-) So please be praying if this is God's will everything will fall into place, and if not, we will trust Him for something better. I helped chaperone Nicole's youth group's trip to Night of Joy last night, so I'm exhausted and must go, but I'll try to update more soon this week! Thanks again for your prayers!!

Tim & Jodie

Tim and Jodie have been married since Nov. 5, 1988. Tim is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and retired city of Tampa Firefighter. Jodie is a happily laid off IBM/AT&T 21 yr veteran employee turned stay-at-home home-schooling mom (say that fast three times!). She works very part-time for a local Christian author and speaker. They have four wonderful children: triplets Nathan, Nicole, and Noah born 11/16/97 and Nicholas born 5/16/99.